1. Field of the Invention
This invention concerns equipment, generically coming within the category of the so-called "autoclaves", for the thermal treatment, in closed and pressurized surroundings, and generally with steam, of products and articles of vulcanizable elastomeric material, such as natural or synthetic rubber. More particularly, this invention concerns an autoclave of very extensive size, in given direction, for the treatment of rubber articles of corresponding great length, typically rubber or essentially rubber hose, produced in pieces with a length generally greater than 100 meters.
More specifically, this invention concerns a linear autoclave for the industrial uses described, and adapted to constitute an operative element or unit of a complete plant for the manufacture of pieces of hose, of great length, in natural or synthetic rubber, such a plant being the subject of another contemporaneous application by the same applicant, to whose context reference is herein made, for the better understanding of some of the technical and industrial features of this same invention.
Moreover, the above mentioned use of this invention does not constitute a limitation of the use of the invention, in that the invention could find advantageous industrial uses in equivalent fields, for example for the formation of vulcanizable rubber tapes, destined to various uses, for example, for the winding and manufacture of shaped bodies with a non-uniform diameter, or other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The construction and more particularly the use of autoclaves with a length which in practice has not been considered by the experts in the art until now, for the production and the treatment by vulcanization of substantially linear articles, of corresponding great length, provide the solution to technical problems and the observance of conditions which, although common to all autoclaves, are presented in a different way in the field of the industrial production considered by this invention.
In fact, the autoclaves destined to operate in said field must avoid drawbacks and limitations resulting from the inevitably large dimensional variations due to temperature variations, their internal space must be accessible along their entire great length, because linear articles of corresponding great length cannot be introduced and removed "heat first" into the autoclave; the closing of the autoclave must be air tight along its entire length, and the movable components and in particular the lid closing the internal space of the autoclave, must be practically uninterrupted and susceptible to contemporaneous operation along the entire length.
To these conditions must be added the characteristics of rapid and safe manoeuvrability for the introduction, treatment and removal of the articles to be vulcanized the whole so as not to endanger the autoclave complex, to assure the uniformity and regularity of the treatment at every point of the article, and to reduce to a minimum the times required for the handling and the operations necessarily occurring between the successive mechanization cycles, carried out in the autoclave itself.